Before Rushing Forward … First Check You’re Facing The Right Way….

For most of my life I’ve seen the world through a pair
of glasses … in fact I was first introduced to the joys of the opticians
chart whilst I was still at school … yet somehow all through my schooldays I
managed to escape most of the ‘kind’ comments and special attentions that are
usually reserved especially for pupils with ‘four eyes’… (I suppose after
some early exchanges, even the most half witted bully worked out very quickly
that it would be wise to seek their sport elsewhere).

In more recent years I’ve been a customer at Vision Express where I was looked after by a fine chap who was very much considered to be the ‘Gok Wan’ of the store … During each of my visits he would express horror or dismay at what I had chosen for myself, then wander off around the various displays in a very ‘characteristic’ fashion and come back with frames that I would never have chosen in a million years … but to be fair, usually suited me considerably more than my own selections…

However, having discovered my little friend had moved on to pastures new,
coupled with the fact that earlier this year an ex-optician friend suggested
that I really ought to seek a more bespoke solution next time I renewed my
specs, I went in search of a ‘new establishment’ to get my glasses. (…and I
would agree the level of service and quality did increase – though not as
dramatically as the price!) … and, as a result I have this week become the
proud but slightly hesitant owner of a fine pair of varifocals (for the
uninitiated these are the ones with the distance, mid range and close-up vision
all combined in the same lens) which should allow me to see, drive and read
clearly just with a slight incline of the head….

As I could tell straight away these were an entirely different beast to anything
that had been perched on the end of my nose for the last thirty years, I
embarked enthusiastically on a trip around the shops in the local town to try
them out … and it really was something of an adventure … I was tilting my
head at various unusual angles just to read the shop names whilst nearly
colliding with dozens of innocent bystanders … even steps and level kerbs
were a distinct challenge to my new focal length … and for some of the
trickier bits I began to utilise and appreciate handrails a good number of
decades earlier than I originally planned…;-)

Still, I’m a lot more comfortable with them now and can make it upstairs
without looking like I’ve spent the previous 10 hours in the pub … but to be
brutally honest if I wasn’t already slightly familiar with the town in question
on that first ‘glasses trial’ outing I would not have had the foggiest idea
about where I was going or what I was doing … a situation that reminded me of
when I first started my own business…

Perhaps you’re the same as I was … you’re keen, motivated and ready to take
‘massive action’ but everything still seems a bit blurry, you don’t know quite
what you’re doing (or even in some cases why you’re doing it) and you don’t
know if what you’re doing is even the right thing to do at all…

In this situation it can be all too easy to rush blindly forward to get to what
you think is some progress or momentum … but in reality we all need a little
time at least to get our bearings by doing a few of the more basic things
first, as it is absolutely essential to clear the fog from our vision before we
decide which direction to go shooting off in on our online endeavours…

Of course, you want to get to the bit you’ve pictured in your mind where you
send the email out and the money comes in … or the bit where your site is
working on autopilot and is making sales regardless of whether you’re working
or having a few drinks with friends … it is, after all, exactly why we all
decided to have a go at running our own businesses, and use the internet in the
way that we do in the first place … but I speak from experience when I say
… you have to ensure you do the basics first…

If you decide to miss out what might seem like the boring bits … like
building a relationship with your customer or taking the time to ensure you
only offer compelling, solid offers for your potential customers, it is almost
certain that your projects will not go quite as well as you planned … the
upshot of which can be to believe that your idea doesn’t work at all, when in
fact you were just on the brink of it all coming together and making a real
success.

So before you are tempted to rush blindly forward into one course of action or
another, please take a moment to get your bearings and make sure you are going
in the right direction…